"Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?"
The other day I went on a spoken-word binge on Youtube, and I came across a poem called 'Pretty' by Katie Makkai. Since seeing it, I've pretty much become obsessed with the idea of image, and how some people determine their self-worth by how much other people value them. In the poem, Makkai talks about how her mother spent thousands of dollars on braces, plastic surgery, and skin treatments, all so she could "fix" what was wrong with her daughter's appearance. As someone who grew up with a mother who constantly made comments about their weight (I'm fat, you see), I can relate. I can relate to the idea that after years of being told that if you fixed certain things - your hair, your teeth, your waist size - you would be "pretty". I searched the tag 'pretty' on Tumblr, and didn't get that much apart from cats and flowers and that. So I searched 'ugly'. And I discovered a black hole of self-hatred; posts about depression, self-harm, and, especially, weight. The words 'fat' and 'ugly' seem to be synonymous, along with the word 'disgusting'. It really saddens me, the thought that people become trapped in themselves, imagining their bodies as prisons. It saddens me how concerned people are with other people's perceptions of them, how people think that they won't be wanted until they change. People today, and especially girls, are bombarded with images of what they 'should' be: cute, fun, girly, thin. Pretty. Image after image of girls with white teeth, glossy hair and that infuriating 'thigh gap' in the arms of boys that are chiseled to perfection. Every day I will see at least one picture that makes me feel bad about myself and my appearance. In a perfect world, there would be no Photoshop in magazines, no mannequins too disproportionate to survive if they were a person, and no Cosmopolitan telling women to "watch out for those problem areas!" or "get that bikini bod in time for summer!". In a perfect world, there would be no mentality that you have to be pretty to be worth something. This is not a perfect world, by any standards. It is brutal and unkind, judgmental and critical. And if it is allowed to, it can chew you up and spit you out. If it is allowed to. I want to say that I don't let the images get to me. I want to say that I don't empathise at all with the 'ugly' side of Tumblr. I want to say that I look in the mirror every day and am happy with what I see. The best I can do here is say that 'pretty' is not synonymous with 'worthy'. Pretty is not synonymous with worthy. I understand that. "This, this is about my own some-day daughter. When you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters. You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you will never be merely 'pretty'.” - 'Pretty', Katie Makkai
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Annie LilygreenA collection of ramblings about things that inspire me. Archives
September 2015
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